


Without You: Battle of the Citadel

by BardofHeartDive



Series: Without You [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Colonist (Mass Effect), F/M, Grief/Mourning, Headcanon, Loss, Lost Love, Mass Effect 3 spoilers, Mass Effect Spoilers, Tale of Woe, War Hero (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-04 05:41:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4127209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardofHeartDive/pseuds/BardofHeartDive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Divergent point: Mara dies when Sovereign explodes during the Battle of the Citadel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This one was not SUPPOSED to be as dramatic as Virmire but then a number of addition deaths flew in and that statement went out the window. I truly apologize for (most of) it but I couldn't save them without Shepard.

In a way, the event should have been the most celebrated occasion in the galaxy. The attack on the Citadel had been repelled and the Council had been saved. Good had triumphed over evil. What’s more, at this singular event, the galaxy stood united. Races with histories of war and hostility put aside their animosity and came together. It could almost be a happy ending.

If only it hadn’t been a funeral.

In the front row, with the rest of the crew of the Normandy, Kaidan had a clear view of the stage. Shepard’s records indicated she wished to be cremated so there was no casket, just a holo on a stand. The stage around it was completely surrounded by flowers.

Off to the left of the stand was a podium where Sparatus was concluding the ceremony. His speech, like all the others, was filled with gratitude and praise for Shepard’s courage, selflessness, and diplomacy. Kaidan hadn't listened to any of the speeches, even the one by Shepard's mother, though it did catch his attention when she used her first name. It was the first time Kaidan heard anyone use her first name.

“In honor of Spectre Shepard, we will light a memorial flame here at the Relay Monument at sundown, a tradition we will repeat annually every year on the anniversary of the Battle of the Citadel,” Sparatus announced. “I invite each of you to remain with us until the lighting. Dextro and levo refreshments will be provided. Now, please rise for the Systems Alliance anthem.”

As one, three hundred people stood.

In a show of solidarity, a musician from each of the Council races had learned the Alliance anthem on a native instrument and they joined the human player. The sounds were strange to Kaidan’s ears but not unpleasant. Three members of the honor guard marched up the center aisle, the first carrying a flag. They mounted the stage. The flagbearer stood behind the stand while the other two stood on either side. They unfolded a smaller flag, about the size of a handkerchief, and presented it to the crowd. Every Alliance soldier present snapped a salute. Then the pair covered the holo.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Liara murmured quietly. If Kaidan hadn’t been standing next to her he wouldn’t have heard her at all.

Seven honor guard riflemen appeared on a higher platform behind the stage. They raised their arms and fired three times over the crowd. Kaidan couldn’t believe Udina managed to get that cleared, even if they were firing blanks. The guard shouldered their rifles and marched across the stage to fall in line behind the other three. Then all ten continued off the stage and through the crowd.

 _It was an honor, Commander,_ Kaidan thought. He looked up to the flowers, still visible below the hem of the cover. At his request, his father had brought bouquet of assorted flowers from his mother's greenhouse in Vancouver, all various shades of ivory and cream. During their night together her skin had smelled like vanilla, soft and warm and white. At that thought he corrected, _Mara._

* * *

Michael Alenko, Kaidan’s father, had been to more than his fair share of military funerals. As one of only three buglers in the whole North American continent, he was often called to play at Alliance funerals. Even after his retirement he and his horn regularly attended three or four every month.

But this was the first he’d attended with his son.

Clearing customs to get on the Citadel taken longer than he’d thought it would and he was afraid he would be late. Fortunately, almost everything was taking longer since the attack and although there was a good sized crowd when he arrived the ceremony hadn’t begun. After asking a corporal, he found Kaidan seated in the front row between an older Alliance officer and lovely, young asari.

Kaidan’s eyes had filled with tears when he saw the bouquet. It was mostly lilies and alstroemerias, with baby's breath and Queen Anne's lace and just enough greenery to provide a nice contrast. He had walked to the edge of the stage with his son and stood half a step behind him as he added them to the pile of flowers around the stand. Just then, Admiral Hackett, Captain Anderson, and Ambassador Udina had taken the stage, signalling the start of the ceremony, and the two had taken their seats. Michael had to go three-quarters of the way back before he found an empty chair.

Getting back to the front of the area was a challenge after the honor guard left. Most of the guests had surged forward at the close of the service and Michael practically had to shove his way forward. He saw Kaidan before he reached him, talking with a group of soldiers. As he watched, one of them pointed to something behind Kaidan.

Like his son, Michael looked where the man had directed. A dark-haired woman was standing at the stage, taking pictures with a heavily modified omni-tool. Even from ten feet away it was obvious Kaidan was not planning polite conversation as he stormed toward her. On an intercept course, Michael sped up and got there in time to hear his son demanding to know who she was and what she was doing.

“My name’s Lydia,” the woman answered, putting up her omni. “Lydia Monroe. I’m a photojournalist. I’m just here to take some pictures.”

“Well go some place else,” Kaidan answered. “We’re not interested in some reporter turning this into a spectacle!”

“I’m not a reporter,” Lydia corrected. Her voice was firm and even. “I’m a photojournalist. And I assure you, I am not interested in turning this into a spectacle either. Commander Shepard was an amazing woman. She deserves to be remembered.”

Michael didn’t know what Kaidan was going to say to that but judging by the faint blue aura growing around him it was probably better not to find out. He put his hand on his son’s shoulder and cut in.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Monroe. Would you mind giving us a minute?”

She nodded, conceding. “Of course, Mr. . . . ”

“Alenko. I’m Michael and this is my son, Kaidan.”

“Excuse me.” She turned to go but stopped to regard Kaidan with her sky-blue eyes. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, Kaidan found himself outside Anderson’s apartment in the Tiberius Towers. He had initially objected to meeting the captain in his home but Anderson had won out in the end. The embassies would be full of politicians mourning a figure not a person and a public location would put them in plain view of the media. It was either the apartment or the Alliance housing where Kaidan was staying until they made his next assignment. The apartment would be more private and comfortable.

Anderson opened the door as soon as Kaidan knocked. He was casually dressed in a gray T-shirt and jeans and holding a steaming cup of coffee.

“Kaidan, come in,” he said. He offered him a seat on the couch in the front room, then asked, “Can I get you anything?”

“No, thank you. I’m having brunch with my dad after we’re done.”

“Then I’ll get right to business.”

Despite his words, Anderson took a moment to gather his thoughts.

“The Council was impressed with Shepard,” he began. Kaidan’s chest tightened but he kept his expression relaxed. “She did humanity proud. Because of her, we’ve been invited to join the Council. Udina will be sworn in sometime next week.”

Kaidan considered some of congratulatory response but settled for the truth instead. “I’d trade a Council seat to have Shepard back any day.”

“Me too,” Anderson admitted, “but we can’t make that deal and it would insult her memory to waste the opportunity she’s given us.” He took a sip of his coffee. “They’ve also agreed to accept more humans into the Spectres, up to three initially. Your name came up.”

“You’re offering me Spectre status?”

“Shepard thought highly of you. I’m sure she would have been the first to recommend you if she were here.”

 _I’d trade your offer to have her back too,_ he thought.

Out loud he said, “And if I refuse?”

“You’ll keep your current position on the Normandy under one of the other Spectre candidates, Ewing or Ramsey.”

Kaidan didn’t need first names or ranks to know who he meant. They were Alliance legends, probably as well known as Shepard before she became the first human Spectre.

Anderson continued, “The Normandy’s repairs should be finished in three or four days and then she’s headed out to the Terminus Systems. Colonies are going dark out there and the brass says she needs to be the one looking into it.”

“Reapers?”

“Geth is the party line.”

“Even if it is geth, they’re just a front for the Reapers.”

“I’m with you. But the Council is still having a hard time accepting the idea of ancient, sentient machines bent on destroying all organic life. Now that Shepard is dead - ”

“Now that Shepard is dead they’re just going to ignore the threat she died protecting them from! Just like they ignored her every time she tried to warn them!” He felt the energy building up around him, not enough to be visible yet, and took a deep breath. Forcing his voice to a calmer tone he said, “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. If they’d listened to her to begin with, she might very well be alive.” His coffee had cooled to lukewarm and he put it on the table in front of him. “I’ll do everything I can here but as Udina’s advisor, I don’t expect it to amount to much.” He focused all his attention on the mug as he said, “That’s why you need to accept.”

“Sir?”

“Unless they’re given a particular assignment by the Council, Spectres are free to choose their own missions.”

Kaidan made an understanding noise and nodded to himself. Standing, he said, “Perhaps this conversation would have been better suited to Flux.”

“I guess that depends on your answer, lieutenant,” Anderson answered.

* * *

Three weeks later, Spectre Kaidan Alenko was on Omega trying to track down Rana Thanoptis when a story on the news caught his attention.

The Normandy, a prototype Alliance warship, previously captained by the late Commander Shepard, had been destroyed by an unknown enemy in the Terminus Systems. Although most of the crew had survived, the ship's commanding officer and pilot, Gina Ewing and Jeff Moreau respectively, as well as twenty others were killed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So . . . this chapter contains my first attempt at writing intimacy. Hopefully it does not read too awkwardly.

Joker’s family was huge.

From what Kaidan had gathered, his mother was one of four, his father was one of five, and all of them were married with at least one child a piece. Most had two or three and some of the older cousins had children themselves. He wasn’t entirely sure the information was correct though. Everyone who had attempted introductions had been more than a little tipsy and, to make things all the more confusing, he was getting there himself.

The Moreau/Lennon family didn’t believe in funerals, one of the many aunts had explained. Instead they built a bonfire in the backyard and threw the biggest, rowdiest party they could manage. They told stories about whoever had died and drank until all the stories were funny. An “Irish Wake,” they called it.

Even with the stories, the people, and alcohol, the thing that held Kaidan’s attention was the picture of Joker. There was only one, sitting on the edge of the bar closest to the fire. Joker was sitting on the edge of a chair, looking past the camera as if he didn’t know it was there, with his hat in his hands. He was wearing his dress uniform, which by itself made the picture noteworthy, but what made it even more interesting was how comfortable he looked in it. When he did have to wear the “monkey suit,” he spent the whole time pulling on the sleeves or adjusting the collar. In this picture, he looked like he wore it every day. His expression was strange, not smiling but not exactly serious. Everything about the image should have been wrong and yet, looking at it, he could not imagine Joker any other way.

“God, I can’t believe we’ve gone through two bottles of this stuff!”

Kaidan had been so fascinated by the picture he hadn’t heard Hilary’s approach. He startled as she slammed a bottle of pale blue liquid down next to the picture.

“What is it?”

“Disgusting,” she answered. “Jeff called it Gift Horse, as in don’t look it in the mouth.” She poured a shot and offered it to Kaidan. It smelled like minty nail polish remover. When he didn’t take it, she raised the glass toward the picture and said, “Here’s to you, brother dear. You and your revolting taste in alcohol.”

She threw the shot into the fire, then replaced the glass next to the bottle.

“So, I have to ask,” Kaidan said, “where did you get this picture?”

“She took it, actually,” she answered, nodding to one of the other guests.

Kaidan’s first thought was that after four lagers he should not have been seeing things yet. Because unless he was much drunker than he thought, the woman Hilary was pointing to was Lydia Monroe, photojournalist.

“At Commander Shepard’s funeral,” Hilary continued. “She actually took a bunch of pictures there. You should ask to see them if you haven’t.”

Kaidan looked at the picture and said, “I think I will.”

He finished the beer in his hand, pulled another from the cooler at the ground, and headed over to Lydia. She saw him coming and excused herself from the group she was talking with.

“Mister Alenko.” The glass in her hand was almost empty but her words were clear. “I promise I had nothing to do with this spectacle. It was like this when I got here.”

“Taking more pictures, Miss Monroe?”

She shook her head. “Lexi, one of Jeff’s cousins, was my roommate in college. They’re all required to bring at least one guest or they get stuck on cleanup duty.”

Kaidan chuckled at that. While he was pretty sure she was joking, it would explain why nearly a hundred was considered a small turn-out.

“Plus, I liked Jeff,” she continued. She lifted her drink slightly when she said his name and Kaidan found himself mimicking the action. “Sometimes he’d send me suggestions of places to shoot. Nothing classified, obviously.” She took a long sip, draining the glass. “He was the one who asked me to come to the funeral. Commander Shepard’s funeral.”

“Yeah. I saw the picture. It, uh . . . it looks like him.” He laughed when he heard the words out loud. “That sounded better in my head. It was supposed to be a compliment.”

“No, I got it. Thank you.”

“Hilary said you had others from the funeral.”

“Quite a few actually. I’m planning a whole exhibit on Shepard’s legacy. If you wanted to stop by my place after you leave, you could look through them." She leaned in toward him, closer than necessary, and regarded him through long, black lashes. "I’d love to get your thoughts. As someone who worked with her.”

“Sure,” he said. He made a mental note to watch how much he drank for the rest of the night. “When do they usually wrap things up?”

“When they run out of liquor.”

* * *

The Parrish Hotel was the only hotel within thirty miles and everyone who wasn’t staying at their own house or the Moreau’s was staying there. A group, including Lydia, had arranged shuttle service to and from the wake and Kaidan managed to squeeze in with them. He hadn’t planned on staying on Tiptree overnight but at this hour he didn’t see the point in leaving until the morning. Especially since he wanted to see the pictures.

Lydia had done her part to end the wake but she seemed mostly unaffected as she led him up to her room. She pressed the elevator button without hesitation or difficulty and had no trouble slipping the key-card through the lock.

“Make yourself at home,” she said, kicking off her shoes.

The room was comfortably small with a bed, a dresser, a mini-fridge, a desk, and a chair. There was a large luggage bag on the chair so he settled on the edge of the bed and took off his shoes, the grand extent of making himself at home. She disappeared into the bathroom, then reemerged in a short, green robe.

“That’s better,” she sighed.

She went to the bag on the chair and pulled out the omni-tool she had used at Shepard’s funeral and a small round projector. She put the projector on the floor then activated the omni and synced them. After entering a few commands the first picture came up, a four foot square projection of the stand covered by the small Alliance flag and the flowers below it. She gave him the omni-tool so he could scroll through them. Kaidan stared at the picture, then the omni, then back at the picture. Watching his face, she went to the mini-fridge. She withdrew two beers, opened them both, and offered him one.

He was grateful for the distraction from the image but he said, “I’m alright, thanks.”

“No offense but you don’t look it,” she answered. When he still didn’t accept, she added, “It’s already open.”

He couldn’t argue with her on either point so he accepted. Satisfied, she sat down next to him as he took a drink and started through the pictures.

The first hundred or so were from the funeral. Everything from the set up - volunteers arranging the seating, two salarians doing audio and video checks, Anderson, Hackett, and Yvonne activating the holo on the stand - to the lighting of the memorial flame. There was even one of him putting his flowers on the stage. It had been taken from far to the right and slightly behind him so all that was visible of his face was a sliver of cheek but the tension in his shoulders and arms left no doubt of his emotions. His favorite from that set was taken at the reception between the ceremonies. Wrex, Garrus, Pressly, and Captain Kirrahe talking together. She had managed to get all of their faces and, despite the obvious physical differences, they shared the same expression, one of respect and loss.

The rest of the pictures came from places Shepard had visited through the course of the mission. The remains of the Prothean beacon from Eden Prime in a lab on the Citadel. Shiala, Arcelia, and the Baynhams rebuilding the Feros colony. Chairman Burns and Corporal Toombs and a handful of survivors from Peak 15. All ripples in Commander Shepard's wake.

Kaidan stopped on Number 402. It was panoramic shot, taken at a strange angle, and he had to study it for a full minute before he could make sense of it. It was a crater, he realized, taken from just inside one lip, so the viewer could see its size and depth while still making out the surrounding area. Most of it was rubble, maybe a lab or water treatment facility, but in the far background he could make out lush mountains and even beyond them the ocean.

“Ugh, this one,” Lydia said. “It’s - ”

“I know what it is,” he answered.

“Well, you’d be the first,” she continued. “I’ve been thinking about taking it out of the show, since most audiences don’t get it.”

“No,” he said. “No, you can’t. Everyone needs to see this. They need to understand. It - ”

Lydia cut him off with a kiss. 

It took him by surprise at first but as she continued he felt himself give in. It wasn’t the alcohol. After her invitation, keeping himself clear-headed became top priority and he’d only nursed the one beer since arriving at the room.

It was the kiss itself that did him in. It was forceful and demanding. She crushed herself against him. Her hands, pulling him closer, were anything but gentle. So while his body was sitting with her on the foot of the bed, his mind was standing in the captain’s cabin of a destroyed ship, and he could not bring himself to leave.

While his body fell back on its side, feeling her nails against his back, his mind watched her crawl up the bed toward him, bathed in blue light.

While his body matched the rhythm she set above him, her hands pressed against his chest as she leaned back, his mind rolled over her to kiss her lips then her neck then her shoulder.

While his body drifted to sleep surrounded by a mix of wood smoke and alcohol, his mind could only smell warm vanilla. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the next one are a little longer than the others. (Actually, I planned for them to be one chapter but then I wrote it and decided it was bad form for the last chapter to be longer than the rest of the other chapters combined.)

“I think we’ll take the guest bedroom,” Lucinda Alenko said, leading her husband and son into the huge Victorian house. “Kaidan, you can spend the night in the master bedroom and then we’ll remake it for Ben and Christina and the girls. They said they’d be in tomorrow evening or Thursday at the latest.”

“There have been delays all over,” Michael said. He shifted awkwardly, trying to keep the two boxes he carried balanced. “There’s no way they can say when they will be in.”

Lucinda stood the suitcase she had been rolling and took the top box off her husband’s stack. “That goes upstairs,” she told him. “Come back for the suitcase if you would too. Kaidan, that bag goes in the study. I’ll get this unpacked and start some lunch.”

Kaidan put the bag down in room but didn’t empty it at first. It was strange being back at Granddad’s. Strange but good. The orchard had always been a safe haven. Sanity when the world was wild. Stability when the world was shifting. He hoped it would prove true one more time.

Music started in the kitchen, Frank Sinatra, mom’s favorite, and Kaidan let himself imagine this was just the start of another family reunion. She and dad’s brother, Max, would argue amicably about whether he or Artie Shaw made better music. After numerous, completely unsubtle hints to his husband about starting a family of their own, Phillip would take his nieces and nephew to play in the yard. Dad would ask Nathan and Daphne about Benning and Aunt Lily, who insisted on playing matchmaker for him since Phillip got engaged, would start in about so-and-so’s sister or a girl she knew from the office.

The sound of shattering ceramic pulled him back to the reality.

“Mom?”

His father’s voice echoed him from upstairs, “Lucy?”

When there was no answer, Kaidan left the study to check on her. He met his father in the hall and they walked into the kitchen to find Lucinda standing frozen with a broken plate at her feet. The color had drained from her face and her mouth was open although she made no attempt to answer either of them. All her attention was focused out the window. Far in the distance, something resembling a red-black squid was descending from the sky.

“What the hell is that?” Michael asked under his breath.

“It’s a Reaper,” Kaidan answered. “I need to get back to Vancouver.”

“We’ll go together,” his father said.

Kaidan expected his mother to object but she didn’t. While Michael changed and Kaidan tried, and failed, to reach anyone at command, she packed them sandwiches for the trip. She was calm despite the tears streaming down her cheeks, as though the rest of her refused to acknowledge that her eyes were crying. When they said goodbye, she kissed them both and stood on the front porch until they disappeared from sight.

* * *

In the end they didn’t go to Vancouver. En route, Anderson got through to Kaidan on a restricted military channel. The Reapers had wiped out the city and Alliance forces were regrouping in the North. He sent coordinates and Michael changed course. There wasn’t enough space to land even a civilian skycar, so they left it at the nearest clearing and walked the mile and a half to the rendezvous point. A quarter mile out they met a patrol that escorted them the rest of the way. Service Chief Ethan Bingham was waiting to brief them when they arrived.

“We’ve got basically nothing, sir,” the chief reported. “Just the gear we brought on our backs and what was in the shuttles. We’re pooling and redistributing weapons and thermal clips but . . . it’s not enough.”

“What’s Anderson’s ETA?” Kaidan asked.

“Best guess, half an hour. But it really is a guess. Comms are all shot to hell and we haven’t heard from them since 1530.”

“Who’s in command now?”

Bingham rubbed the back of his neck and cleared his throat. “Well, technically you’re the ranking officer, sir. Highest we’ve got here is Second Lieutenant and he’s never seen combat. I’ve been running the field operations.”

“Casualties?”

“Minor cuts, bruises, and burn . . . at least for those who managed to evacuate.”

“You’ve done well, Chief. We’ll hold here until Anderson arrives and see what he’s got for us. Until then, we follow your established protocol.”

“Permission to speak, sir?”

His father’s request caught Kaidan off guard until he realized its implication. He was establishing himself as a soldier, shifting their relationship from personal to professional.

“Granted.”

“I’d like to take a look through the medical gear. It’s been a long time since I worked trauma but I’ve been a doctor longer than you’ve been alive.”

“Go ahead, lieutenant.” A figure sitting alone at the canteen caught his eye and even he could hear the distraction in his voice as he added, “Chief, show him the way.”

“Aye aye, sir!”

While Bingham and his father headed toward the center of the camp, Kaidan turned the opposite way. The object of his interest didn’t notice his approach and she noticeably jumped when he said, “We do have a way of running into each other, don’t we?”

“That we do,” Lydia said when she recognized him. She gestured an invitation for him to sit. “What are you doing here?”

“I think I should be asking you that, since it actually makes sense that I’m here.”

“Last year, I started petitioning for a journalism license to follow personnel into combat zones. I was in Vancouver for the final ruling when the Reapers hit.”

“I guess it was just bad luck,” Kaidan said.

“Are you kidding? This is the chance of a lifetime.” She activated her omni. Without the projector the maximum size was only eight inches but the image was clear. A soldier in partial cover firing on an approaching cannibal while two children clung to his leg. “I was approved. I’ll stay off the front lines, no argument there, but people need to see this. So they remember.”

“I’m, uh, beginning to think you’re a little crazy, Miss Monroe.”

“You know, I think given everything, it would be okay for you to call me Lydia.” She didn’t let him answer before continuing, “And if you want crazy, I’ll show you the pictures from my first shoot. I was part of a team that went to Mount Merapi during its last eruption. Have you ever been inside an active volcano?”

“Actually, yes,” he laughed, “but I didn’t have time to enjoy the scenery.”

“And now who’s the crazy one, Mister Alenko?”

“Why don’t you call me Kaidan.”

* * *

As the biggest nearly-intact building in the rural village outside of Mombasa, a school gymnasium had replaced hospital after it was destroyed. A triage station had been set up just inside the lobby with three nurses devoted solely to immediate assessment and directing traffic. Stable patients with minor injuries were treated within the lobby itself further away from the doors, while severe and critical cases were seen on the court.

Kaidan didn’t let the shuttle land. He jumped the last three feet, his kinetic barriers activating as he hit the ground, and took off for the building. Inside he blew past triage and grabbed the first profession he saw, a doctor, civilian based on her clothing.

“Alenko,” he gasped. “Doctor Michael Alenko.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t - ”

“I got this, Gwen,” another doctor said. This one wore a uniform with a captain’s insignia on the sleeve. “Follow me, Major.” The doctor led Kaidan forward into the sea of cots, talking as they went. “He came in about ten minutes ago. Penetrating chest wound, along with major blunt force trauma to most of his left side. We’re doing what we can to make him comfortable.” He tilted his head, indicating halfway down a row where Kaidan could make out a his father on a cot and a man sitting beside him. “His CO, Commander Schilling, is with him now.”

Each step felt impossible but somehow he made it to the bed. His father’s eyes were closed and the staff had wrapped his left side with a sheet so the injuries themselves weren’t visible. As soon as he saw him, Schilling stood and saluted.

“It was Brutes, sir,” the commander said. “They charged right into us. I gave the order to fall back but there were wounded. He said . . . ”

Kaidan put a hand up. “Thank you, Commander. Dismissed.”

Schilling left without another word. Kaidan pulled the chair closer to the cot and lay his hand on Michael’s uninjured shoulder. His eyelids fluttered at the contact.

“Dad?”

“Major.”

Given the situation, the word should have sounded impersonal but it didn’t. In those two syllables, Kaidan heard all the love and pride in the world. He played along.

“I hear you disobeyed a direct order, lieutenant.”

“I took an oath, sir.” Michael reached a badly shaking hand up toward him. Kaidan took it. He tried to ignore how cold it was, how weakly the fingers curled around his own. “Tell your mother . . . tell Lucy, she was everything.”

“I will.”

Michael’s eyes closed and silence fell. His breaths came slower and shallower but before they stopped entirely he looked at Kaidan and said, “I hope . . . hope someday you meet someone you love as much as I love her . . . ”

“I have, dad. I met the most wonderful woman.” Michael’s eyes were unfocused but a hint of a smile ghosted across his lips. Kaidan squeezed his hand to hold in a sob. “She, uh, she’s beautiful and brave, fearless even. It scares me to death. She’s a ballerina. Kind of reminds me of mom, only ballet. And she . . . she always smells like vanilla.”

“Good. That’s good,” Michael wheezed. “So . . . when do I get . . . get to meet her . . . ”

“Soon.” He pressed his father’s hand, still sandwiched between his own, to his forehead. “It won’t be long now.”

A short while later, Kaidan closed his father’s eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

Theoretically, the plan was simple. Run to the beam, open the Citadel arms, fire the Crucible. The difficulties were all in the implementation. There were countless Reaper forces between them and their goal. No one knew how the beam worked - for all they knew, it would kill them in transport - or what they would find when they reached the Citadel. And the most ominous question, would the Crucible even work?

Kaidan’s eyes drifted up to the man sitting across from him and immediately back down to his hands in his lap. He didn’t like Chris Ramsey, the only other human Spectre. With his blue eyes, fair skin, and ginger hair, Ramsey could have been attractive if he wasn’t so obviously cold. It wasn’t surprising given his reputation. Since becoming a Spectre, he had willingly worked for Cerberus, destroyed the last hope of a cure for the genophage, and killed the quarian fleet in favor of a creating a tenuous alliance with the geth. 

Kaidan couldn’t look at him without seeing Admiral Kahoku, Wrex, and Tali.

There were three other men in the vehicle, Anderson, Major Liam Coats, and Lieutenant James Vega. Kaidan had gotten to know Vega during the Collector threat the year before and he was concerned about him now. Vega had evacuated with Ramsey when Earth fell and stayed with him while the Spectre gathered the galactic forces. He had come back different, a little less goofy, a little more calculating. It was a small step but one that started him down a dark road. The lieutenant had been a good man and Kaidan was worried about him.

It was easier to worry about Vega then all the possible flaws in their simple plan.

“We’re in sight of the target,” Coats announced.

“All right, everyone,” Anderson said. He stood and the rest of them followed his example. “This is it.”

Before anyone could add anything, there was an explosion and the vehicle rolled.

Systems failed, the lights went out, and for a moment there was utter darkness. Then an omni-tool activated, casting a dim orange glow around the interior. Kaidan could make out Anderson and Vega coming to their feet. Coats sat where he fell, demanding an update. Ramsey, the source of the light, was kneeling at the door. Just as Kaidan started to ask if he could help, it opened and the five of them crawled out onto the street.

Anderson summed up the entire situation with one word: “Shit.”

Ramsey didn’t hesitate. He broke into a run, sprinting toward the beam.

“We gotta move!” Anderson said. He started after Ramsey, shouting orders through the comm. “Hammer squads, go, go, go!”

Kaidan fixed his eyes on the beam and let everything else fade away. He was vaguely aware that Vega was next to him and that other vehicles and soldiers were with them as well. Harbinger was firing on the transports, killing those inside and pelting those on foot with debris. A near shot scorched the ground to Kaidan’s left and he felt a flash of searing heat before his thermal buffers activated. He stumbled but kept his footing.

Well ahead of them Harbinger fired on another transport, sending it flying. Ramsey slid under it but Kaidan barely registered the action. His eyes followed its trajectory as it slammed into another downed vehicle just in front of them. The warning he yelled to Vega was drowned out by the crash as it vaulted into the air toward them.

Kaidan dove and narrowly avoided getting crushed only to be bombarded by a shower of rock and metal. He struggled to stand then stumbled toward Vega, who was down a few feet away. By the time he got there, the lieutenant was conscious but stunned. Kaidan pulled him into the cover of the vehicle that had very nearly killed them and sat him up against it.

“I’m okay,” Vega said. He clutched his side, his face twisted in pain, but managed to grit out. “I can still fight.”

“We need to get you out of here,” Kaidan replied. He knew the futility of the words. There was no one to call for an evacuation. Still he couldn’t just let the man die. He pulled his assault rifle off his back and checked the thermal clip. “You’re in no condition - ”

“Just give me my gun!”

“Stand down, lieutenant.”

Kaidan made it an order this time, putting the force of command into his voice. He paused to fired a short burst into an approaching husk, anticipating further argument but it never came. At first Kaidan thought it was the involuntary response soldiers had drilled into them to obey an order. When he looked down, though, the man was unconscious.

Swearing, Kaidan switched his rifle for his pistol and activated the medical scanner on his omni-tool. A quick review of Vega’s vitals confirmed his suspicions. He was going into shock, probably from some internal injury. Kaidan gave him a dose of medi-gel but he knew it was just a stop-gap. The lieutenant needed more help than a field medic could provide.

He opened a comm link. All he got was static but he didn’t have another option.

“This is Spectre Kaidan Alenko, requesting immediate medical assistance. I have - ”

Through the hissing and the crackles, he caught a voice. His initial relief was almost immediately quashed when he realized that the connection only went one way. He could hear them but they couldn’t hear him.

“ . . . th - . . . gon - . . . Did . . . any - . . . the . . . - eam? . . . - gative, our ent - . . . ”

A snarl alerted him to another group of husks and he turned the comm off. There wasn’t time to switch back to his rifle so he blew the first husk’s head off at close range with his pistol and biotically threw the other three back. He needed to be selective about using his biotics. This would be a marathon not a sprint and he only had a half-sized bioti-bag.

The world became a merry-go-round of carnage and memories. He did what he could for Vega when he could but the lieutenant’s condition was steadily worsening. Idly, he wondered if the Blitz had been like this for Shepard, only instead of defending one wounded man, she had protected a city of millions. He thought of Ash as he switched to his rifle again. “Short controlled bursts, L-T,” she had told him, back when he was only trained with a pistol. “Think of it like that prehistoric music you like so much. You only want to fire on the off beats.” And then he was back to his father, playing along with recordings of Fats Navarro and Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, though he never could keep up when Dizzy really got going.

 _This is a good death,_ he thought in a lull, _a death any soldier would be proud of._

He was out of thermal clips and the faint tremble in his fingers told him he had one, maybe two, biotic bursts left. He knelt to give Vega the last of the medi-gel but he was cold. Kaidan checked for a pulse but his fingers couldn’t find even a flutter.

“It was an honor, lieutenant,” Kaidan said, patting his shoulder. He stood, switching his omni to a blade and using his last bit of biotics for a barrier. He kept his eyes on the movement in the distance as he said, “Tell them, I’m on my way.”

And then there was a flash of blue light.

* * *

Kaidan slipped out of the warmth of the dining room into the night, closing the door silently behind him.

On the other side of that door, his rehearsal dinner was going on. The caterers were serving steak and crab legs. The survivors of his father’s jazz group were playing quiet background music, waiting until after dinner so there would be something to dance to. His mother was chatting with her in-laws to-be. Their friends were going on and on to his fiancee about how happy they were for the both of them.

Out here there was only the lapping of the waves and a cool breeze from the bay.

In the distance he could make out the giant shapes of three Reapers, working tirelessly to repair the city they had so recently destroyed. The sight chilled him more than the breeze  off the water. It didn’t matter how completely they seemed to have submitted. As long as they existed, repeating the cycle had merely been delayed.

No one could control something so ancient, so powerful and keep their humanity. Well, maybe if it had been Shepard.

But then if it had been Shepard there wouldn’t be Reapers to control.

The door opened, spilling light and laughter onto the porch, and Lydia called, “Kaidan?”

“Out here.”

“God, it’s cold,” she said, joining him. She nestled herself under his arm. “Everyone’s waiting to start the toasts. What are you doing?”

“Just . . . thinking.”

Her eyes went to the Reapers as well and she asked, “About the war?”

“In a way,” he answered. “I didn’t think it would be like this in end.”

“No one did.” She snuggled against him. “I never thought I’d be this happy.”

He avoided answering by kissing the top of her head. She shivered and he said, “Go on in before you freeze. I’ll be right there.”

She hurried ahead of him, rubbing her bare arms as she went. He watched her until the door shut, then turned back to the Reapers.

 _It wasn’t supposed to be like this,_ he thought.

He took a deep breath to steel himself for the party and let his memory make it smell like vanilla.


End file.
